The Road to Becoming Instafamous

No matter if your business is selling to other businesses or to consumers, there are benefits to capitalize on from setting up an Instagram account. Don’t think your company needs one? We always to meet your audience where they are so you can best reach them and inform them of your services, and so they can engage with your brand.

With more than 500 million monthly active users on Instagram(Rival IQ), it’s easy to see how B2C companies can reach their market, but what about B2B? The main goal on social media is engagement. The more engagement you receive, the more reach your posts will have and the higher chances your company has for conversions. According to Rival IQ, Instagram receives more engagement (2.26%) than both Facebook (.21%) and Twitter (.02%) combined.

There is also always the added SEO benefit that Google likes to rank active online users higher. This means having a larger online presence through social media accounts and using them often, having users engage with your company and mentioning you in posts will only help your brand strengthen online.

Here are a few tips to enhance your business marketing strategy on Instagram:

Determine your “why.”

Is your main goal with social media to gain brand awareness and inform users of your products/services or to interact with your target market and build a loyal customer base? Knowing how you want to approach the platform and what you hope to gain out of the account will shape your messages and the way you post, including how often and with what tone.

Track your success.

Similar to any business goal, you will need to identify a way to measure how you’re doing on Instagram and what components to the reporting process are most important to your company. Items to consider tracking include followers, mentions, likes, comments, hashtag use related to your brand, link clicks over to your website, etc. What you track should be determined based on the goals you set. For example, if you are looking for brand awareness, then your follower count might be most important. But if you are looking to build a loyal community of customers, then mentions and hashtag use might be most important for your company.

Remember you’re a business.

Setting up the account as a business profile allows you to add a website and call to actions such as “Call,” “Directions,” and “Email” on your profile. This setting will allow your business to not only look more professional, but it will also make it easier for users to contact you, visit your website and/or find your business. Make sure to also add a bio that clear states who you are and what products/services you offer.

Think aesthetics.

Instagram is all about visuals. Take into account your brand colors and theme when posting pictures, and tell a story with your photos. Instagram users are known to swipe through the pictures without looking at the content unless something captures their eyes, sparks interest and makes them want to know more. Make your audience want to pause and engage with your photos instead of passively double-tapping your photo and moving on.

Captivate with captions.

You got users to stop and look at your photo more in detail. That’s great! But just as important (if not more important for some companies) as the visuals used is the content created. Mix up the type of post to maintain engagement (from new product announcements to company news and also relevant and timely content that helps to humanize your brand). People don’t want to see the same photo and content day after day, so strategize your content and story telling to better interest users to your brand as a whole.

Boost your engagement.

Using hashtags unique to your brand and incorporating hashtags that are popular to an event, day, product, etc. will help increase your reach and visibility as well as user interaction. Another way to boost engagement is by starting competitions and asking users questions with a related hashtag. For example, as the holidays near and if you are a coffee shop, you can caption something like,

The holidays are near and our seasonal flavors are out! Where is your favorite spot to relax during the holidays with a coffee in hand? Tag your spot with your coffee mug and #HolidayCoffeeSpots and we’ll regram your posts!

If you take these tips to heart and do them just right, you’ll be on your way to making an “Instafamous” brand! If you have other questions about Instagram (or other social media platform) marketing strategies, connect with us! Engage with us on Instagram and follow our account, or contact us! We love social media and we love helping businesses grow! Check out our services to see how we can help you specifically with communications or with other areas of marketing.